Microsoft is today rolling out an update to its Office apps for iOS devices bringing the ability to save to iCloud and tap into storage from other services across all three apps.
The update is available today for Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps for iPhone and iPad. Users will be prompted to update to Apple’s new iCloud Drive feature to take advantage if they haven’t already.
While the feature will allow users to “open, edit, and save” documents to and from iCloud, you will be limited in file types. For example, a TextEdit document stored in iCloud will be viewable but not available to open for edits in the app. The iCloud support will, however, allow users to take advantage of iCloud storage opposed to perhaps having to buy Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage services.
Microsoft recently announced Dropbox integration for managing and editing files stored in the service in a similar way, but today’s update also brings the ability to tap into other third-party storage providers, including Box, through currently installed apps on iOS 8 (as pictured above).
In addition to the new support for storage services, Microsoft announced it will begin allowing integration of Office Online into apps allowing users “to open, view, and edit documents stored in those services in any web browser.”
Starting today, third-party cloud storage providers can natively integrate into the “Locations” picker in the iOS Office apps. This will enable users to open, edit and save documents from these providers right from within Office. While we’re announcing availability of the iPad and iPhone integration today, we’re hard at work on the same type of integration for the Office universal apps for Windows 10 and the Office for Android apps
The updated apps, version 1.6, are available on the App Store now (Word, Excel, Powerpoint).
What’s New in Version 1.6
• iCloud support: open, edit, and save your work to iCloud and other online storage services (requires iOS 8). • Bug fixes.
